5 Steps to Getting the Best Results with LinkedIn Advertising

Kristi Hines , 07 November 2012

Compared to other social advertising platforms like Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn leans towards the more expensive side when it comes to cost per click. The nice part is that you have the opportunity to cater your advertising to your idea clients thanks to their detailed ad targeting. The following five steps will help you get the most value from your LinkedIn advertising campaigns.

1. Learn more about your ideal customer on LinkedIn.

If your business already has customers, then you are in luck. Look at your best customers and see if you can find their company pages on LinkedIn. At the very bottom of the company page, you’ll find some information about the business as shown in the below image.

What you’ll want to make note of for your best customers is their location, industry, and company size. All three of these can be used when you are targeting your advertising campaign.

One thing that can hurt the conversion rate of your LinkedIn ad (or any ad for that matter) is not having a landing page specific to what you are advertising. For example, if your ad is about your mobile software, then anyone who clicks on it will want to be taken to a page about your mobile software instead of your homepage which may not direct visitors to what they want to know.

Another good way to create conversions is to have landing pages for the specific people you are targeting your ad towards. For example, let’s say that Shopify, the shopping cart software provider, wanted to create an ad on LinkedIn targeting the Wine & Spirits industry. Instead of having the ad go to their homepage, they would probably use their landing page specific for selling wine online in the ad instead.

As you can imagine, this would have a better impact on conversions for the 6,877 companies listed in the Wine & Spirits industry than a generic landing page. Be sure to do this with your own ads to increase conversion rate and have a better ROI with your ads.

3. Test different ad variations to see which one is more effective.

Once you have determined your target audience and chosen specific landing pages to send them to, your next job is to create your ad with LinkedIn Ads. First, you will enter your campaign name and then create up to 15 ad variations. Variations are crucial as they allow you to test what headlines, description, and images attract the most clicks to your ad. You can also modify your ad variations throughout the length of your campaign as well as activate and deactivate them when necessary.

If you plan on targeting different industries with different landing pages, you can create whole campaigns for each industry targeted and have up to 15 ad variations for each. Unfortunately you can’t target different variations to different industries within one campaign, so you will have to think carefully about your variations vs. the specific targeting for each.

4. Use the information about your ideal customers and target them in your advertising campaign.

Once you’ve created your ad variations, you will use the information you put together about your ideal customers location, industry, and company size to target your ad.

You can also further target your ad to people with specific job titles and skillsets which can help you get your ad in front of the right decision makers or potential end users of your product or service. As you select specific targeting options, you will also see your estimated target audience. Remember that the goal isn’t to have a huge number of people see your ad, although you want the number to be significant enough that someone will see it.

The goal is for the right people to see your ad. You don’t need millions of people to click on your ad, and with the cost per click, you don’t want them to either. What you do want is for your ideal customers to click on it and go from a visitor to your website to a conversion.

5. Find out who is really clicking on your ads with Jumplead.

When it comes to determining your ad’s success, LinkedIn provides only analytics for the number of clicks your ad received during a specified time period.

LinkedIn’s ad analytics may help you figure out how many clicks you are receiving with specific ad variations, but it doesn’t help you determine who is clicking on your ad. This is where Jumplead steps in. During your ad campaign, you can log in to your dashboard and see what companies have come to your website from LinkedIn – by name.

Not only that, but you can more details about the company itself as well as see what pages on your website they visited, from your landing page and beyond.

Use this information and other Jumplead features during your LinkedIn ad campaign to do the following.

Determine what your ideal customer is interested in beyond the specific products and services you were advertising. If you notice that they leave the product / service you are advertising to see something else, you might want to shift your advertising towards that product / service instead.

See if specific companies are repeat visitors to your website. If you notice they are returning often to learn more about a specific product or service, it shows they are highly interested and might just need a more direct nudge. It’s not quite cold calling if they are already familiar with your business.

Interact with visitors as they are live on your website through the chat feature. Maybe they just have one or two questions that, when answered, could help seal the deal.

Save notes and reminders about prospects coming to your website in one place for simpler, more effective lead management.

In Conclusion…

If you use the above steps and include Jumplead into your LinkedIn Ad campaign, you can ensure the best possible results for your advertising budget.

Compared to other social advertising platforms like Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn leans towards the more expensive side when it comes to cost per click. The nice part is that you have the opportunity to cater your advertising to your idea clients thanks to their detailed ad targeting. The following five steps will help you get the most value from your LinkedIn advertising campaigns.

1. Learn more about your ideal customer on LinkedIn.

If your business already has customers, then you are in luck. Look at your best customers and see if you can find their company pages on LinkedIn. At the very bottom of the company page, you’ll find some information about the business as shown in the below image.

What you’ll want to make note of for your best customers is their location, industry, and company size. All three of these can be used when you are targeting your advertising campaign.

One thing that can hurt the conversion rate of your LinkedIn ad (or any ad for that matter) is not having a landing page specific to what you are advertising. For example, if your ad is about your mobile software, then anyone who clicks on it will want to be taken to a page about your mobile software instead of your homepage which may not direct visitors to what they want to know.

Another good way to create conversions is to have landing pages for the specific people you are targeting your ad towards. For example, let’s say that Shopify, the shopping cart software provider, wanted to create an ad on LinkedIn targeting the Wine & Spirits industry. Instead of having the ad go to their homepage, they would probably use their landing page specific for selling wine online in the ad instead.

As you can imagine, this would have a better impact on conversions for the 6,877 companies listed in the Wine & Spirits industry than a generic landing page. Be sure to do this with your own ads to increase conversion rate and have a better ROI with your ads.

3. Test different ad variations to see which one is more effective.

Once you have determined your target audience and chosen specific landing pages to send them to, your next job is to create your ad with LinkedIn Ads. First, you will enter your campaign name and then create up to 15 ad variations. Variations are crucial as they allow you to test what headlines, description, and images attract the most clicks to your ad. You can also modify your ad variations throughout the length of your campaign as well as activate and deactivate them when necessary.

If you plan on targeting different industries with different landing pages, you can create whole campaigns for each industry targeted and have up to 15 ad variations for each. Unfortunately you can’t target different variations to different industries within one campaign, so you will have to think carefully about your variations vs. the specific targeting for each.

4. Use the information about your ideal customers and target them in your advertising campaign.

Once you’ve created your ad variations, you will use the information you put together about your ideal customers location, industry, and company size to target your ad.

You can also further target your ad to people with specific job titles and skillsets which can help you get your ad in front of the right decision makers or potential end users of your product or service. As you select specific targeting options, you will also see your estimated target audience. Remember that the goal isn’t to have a huge number of people see your ad, although you want the number to be significant enough that someone will see it.

The goal is for the right people to see your ad. You don’t need millions of people to click on your ad, and with the cost per click, you don’t want them to either. What you do want is for your ideal customers to click on it and go from a visitor to your website to a conversion.

5. Find out who is really clicking on your ads with Jumplead.

When it comes to determining your ad’s success, LinkedIn provides only analytics for the number of clicks your ad received during a specified time period.

LinkedIn’s ad analytics may help you figure out how many clicks you are receiving with specific ad variations, but it doesn’t help you determine who is clicking on your ad. This is where Jumplead steps in. During your ad campaign, you can log in to your dashboard and see what companies have come to your website from LinkedIn – by name.

Not only that, but you can more details about the company itself as well as see what pages on your website they visited, from your landing page and beyond.

Use this information and other Jumplead features during your LinkedIn ad campaign to do the following.

Determine what your ideal customer is interested in beyond the specific products and services you were advertising. If you notice that they leave the product / service you are advertising to see something else, you might want to shift your advertising towards that product / service instead.

See if specific companies are repeat visitors to your website. If you notice they are returning often to learn more about a specific product or service, it shows they are highly interested and might just need a more direct nudge. It’s not quite cold calling if they are already familiar with your business.

Interact with visitors as they are live on your website through the chat feature. Maybe they just have one or two questions that, when answered, could help seal the deal.

Save notes and reminders about prospects coming to your website in one place for simpler, more effective lead management.

In Conclusion…

If you use the above steps and include Jumplead into your LinkedIn Ad campaign, you can ensure the best possible results for your advertising budget.